


Digging Up What is Buried Deep

by SilenceIsGolden15



Series: Voltron Oneshots [36]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Allura is mean, Another post Galra Reveal because I'm WEAK, Fantastic Racism, Gen, Hurt Keith (Voltron), Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Post-Episode: s02e08 The Blade of Marmora, Protective Shiro (Voltron)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-04
Updated: 2019-02-04
Packaged: 2019-10-22 10:21:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17660849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilenceIsGolden15/pseuds/SilenceIsGolden15
Summary: Keith screws up during a battle, and Allura isn't impressed. Of course, she may have been a little too harsh.





	Digging Up What is Buried Deep

**Author's Note:**

> I know another post galra reveal thing but I don't have an excuse just take it and go.

“I’m sorry, Princess.” 

Keith stood before her, contrite, head lowered, his helmet  _ her father's helmet  _ tucked under his arm. Behind him the Red Lion  _ her father’s lion  _ was still smoking from the hits they took in battle. When Keith had been reckless and insubordinate.

Her voice came out sharp. “Sorry? Sorry is all you have to say?”

He winced, but didn’t say anything. She stormed up to him, waiting for him to look up to meet her glare, but he never did. He just stared at his feet. Cowardly. Her father would never have stood that way. 

Her temper flared white hot.

“Sorry isn’t good enough!”

Allura didn’t even feel her hands come up until her palms pressed against the coolness of his chestplate, but by then he’d already been shoved. Keith toppled to the floor, landing hard on his right shoulder (which Allura remembered with a certain amount of vindication was still healing), and the helmet fell from his grasp to roll several feet away.

She expected him to leap immediately back to his feet the way he always did in battle, fire in his eyes and a Galra snarl on his lips. But he didn't. He just… lay there. On the floor. 

“Well?” she snapped. “Are you going to just lie there like a corpse?”

He didn’t answer. He’d curled himself into a loose ball, still on his right side, and gone still. Like a statue pushed off of its pedestal. 

“On your feet, Paladin! Now!” 

Keith didn’t budge, and Allura felt her vision turning red and her fists clenching. She knew he could fight, but now he wouldn’t even do her the decency of standing up. It was insulting. 

The air barely stirred when he whispered, “I’m sorry,” and Allura could’ve screamed. 

“I said  _ get up!”  _

Keith made a tiny sound and coiled tighter into his ball, just as another voice echoed through the Red Lion’s hangar.

“What is going on here?”

She barely turned to see Shiro coming in through the door, followed by the rest of the Paladins, and her stomach clenched at the expression his face twisted into when he registered the scene before him. 

“What did you  _ do?”  _ Shiro rushed forward, clipping her shoulder a bit roughly as he passed, and dropped to his knees beside Keith’s prone form. But before he could do anything else Keith let out a strangled noise and rolled onto his other side, putting his back to Shiro and ducking his head under his arms. There was a smear of something red on the floor where his shoulder had been resting.

“I’m sorry!” The words were much louder than before, and now that Allura could hear the raw fear in his voice a chill began to wash over her. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”

“Oh, Keith, no,” Shiro’s voice cracked, “What do you have to be sorry for?”

Keith, apparently, took this badly. His back shuddered as he poured out words like a river of confession. “I disobeyed orders on the mission, I wasn’t supposed to go back for that pod, I was supposed to pull back, not put the others in danger, I was a bad soldier, I was bad, I’m bad, I’m sorry--”

Shiro practically disintegrated then into a babble of murmured coos and reassurances, still trying to reach for him, but with Keith flinching away every time, it was no simple task. Allura could do nothing more than stand and watch numbly, even as Hunk spoke up behind her.

“What did you do to him, Allura?”

Her clenched fists fell slack. “I pushed him,” she said, her tone flat and not hearing the chorus of gasps that erupted from behind her. 

“Oh my god--”

“Allura, that is so not ok--”

“How could you do something like that--”

She tuned them all out. She was watching Shiro.

He’d finally managed to pull Keith upright and into him to lean on his shoulder, though Keith still hadn’t uncoiled from his protective position. He hadn’t stopped talking, either.

“I’m sorry, please, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I know I was bad, I know what I did wrong, please--” and on and on and on in a never-ending string of pleas. Allura wasn’t sure what emotion was making her throat tighten-- all she knew was how her eyes filled with tears when Shiro shot her a vicious glare over the top of Keith’s head. 

“You re-opened the wound on his shoulder,” he growled dangerously, clutching Keith to his chest, armor and all. Then his eyes slid off of her. “Guys, will one of you call Coran please?”

One of the Paladins responded and left, though Allura disregarded the sound of footsteps as they rushed away. She took a step of her own, just one towards Keith.

The Red Lion braced her feet and roared so loudly the ceiling seemed to shake. 

Allura stepped back. 

Keith turned his head to rest more comfortably against Shiro’s pauldron, finally giving the Princess a good look at his face for the first time since he’d landed after the battle, at his eyes, and her heart stopped in her chest.

Those strange black pupils humans had were constricted as small as she’d ever seen them, the irises obscured by the sheen of the tears that streaked down his face with abandon. For the first time since she’d met the Paladins they were unfocused, staring not at the floor beyond Shiro but rather through it, at something else entirely. 

What kind of memories had she dug up?

“It’s alright, Keith,” Shiro was murmuring to him as she stared, “It’s alright, no one’s going to hurt you, you’re ok, you’re safe.” All the while he held Allura’s gaze. That look in his eye, the hard set to his jaw, the tenseness of his muscles; they all indicated that the two of them would be having a very in-depth conversation about this later. 

But for now, all Allura could do was watch.

And a tear slipped down her cheek. 

 


End file.
